No surprises here. Just like the lockdown on iPhone screen and part replacements, Macbooks suffer from the same Apple’s anti-repair and anti-consumer bullshit. Battery glued, ssd soldered in and can’t even swap parts with other official parts. 6000$ laptop and you don’t even own it.
Framework laptops are getting better. Not Apple levels good, but it certainly beats them in average longevity.
The only hope with Apple is having the EU step in again to stop this kind of bullcrap.
I love the idea of Framework and I want to get one, but the price is multiple times of what I paid for my current machine… and this is better than the Framework in several ways. I’m hoping that a few of the Frameworks make it onto the second hand market and I’ll buy one there. The idea of a laptop that’s easy to replace and lasts forever is brilliant though, and I hope they take off.
What did you get and for how much? To me it seems the framework (at least the 16) is only a bit (100-200 out of 1600) more expensive than laptops with similar specs.
I paid approx $700 for a i5 with a Geforce 3050 and a 144hz screen. The RAM was weak but it was upgrade able so I got it up to 40GB, about $800 all up. It’s an MSI.
The only downside is that it’s such a pain to take apart and it’s put together in a way where there’s a very real chance of doing permanent damage when taking off the cover, since the case actually wraps around the ports and makes the motherboard bend when you apply any pressure to it. It came with 8GB of RAM out of the box, so basically unusable without the upgrade; still, I’m very happy with it atm.
Yeah the upfront cost is more, but personally I think it’s more than worth it since it will probably end up being cheaper in the long term, especially if you like to upgrade frequently. I’m personally thinking I’m going to try the framework 16 route once I decide to rid of my current laptop. I hope they take off too and I’m more than willing to show support for a company pushing right to repair.
Not that I’m advocating for Apple’s inexcusable behaviour, but as someone who’s worked in IT managing fleets of hundreds of Thinkpads (among others like Apple, Dell, Acer, HP), respectfully, they are far less reliable and durable than a MacBook. The only devices I had with higher failure rates than ThinkPads were Acer laptops.
They are certainly more repairable, but so are others like Dell and HP. Lenovo were one of the earlier manufacturers to pull some anti-repair moves such as soldering memory to the mainboard (on the Yoga models).
I think your statement is far more accurate in the days when IBM owned the ThinkPad brand, but unfortunately Lenovo have run it into the ground as far as quality goes.
All that said, I certainly hope we see more projects like Framework so that these big manufacturers can get some sort of reality check.
ThinkPads are far superior than MacBooks for longevity
Not sure that’s true. I have a pretty top-of-the-line ThinkPad (3 years old) and it started falling apart after like a year of regular use. Maybe years ago that was true but nowadays I feel like everybody except maybe Apple has crap build quality.
This is the opinion of someone who has not used a Thinkpad nor a MacBook built within the past three years.
That’s my thought, too. My IBM T20 is still in great working order (with the original hardware, except for the PCI card, which I lost). My Lenovo T440 just died a couple months back. The T20 had Win98SE then Win2000 then XP and was used as a daily driver for about 5 years, before I had to retire it due to hardware specs (I still use it occasionally, but it now has antiX on it). The T440 had Win7 then Win10 and was a daily for about 3 years before it started having mechanical issues, then finally fried. I got an E595 and stuck Fedora on it. Hopefully, it will last long enough to get me saved up for a Framework, but I doubted. A part of me believes that the old IBM ThinkPads will outlast humanity, along with cockroaches and McDonald’s fries. Honestly, I should learn my lesson and stop buying Lenovo (used or otherwise), but I had to have something since the T440 letdown and the E595 was on a liquidation sale.
Linux compatibility is highest
The L14 Gen1 I have must be an exception then. The fingerprint reader isn’t compatible at all (I feel kinda taken for a ride there since it’s seemingly the only Synaptics reader without Linux compatibility) and both Bluetooth and USB are very buggy. I haven’t used it with Windows, so the latter two may also be down to crappy firmware. Either way I’m rather disappointed for the price tag and probably not buying Lenovo again any time soon.
I would love a Framework laptop, but my current laptop (a Dell XPS 15 from 2017) is still going strong. Buying a new repairable laptop defeats the whole sustainable thing if there’s nothing wrong with my current one. I’ve done 2 fixes to my current laptop: Replaced the speakers that had died, and added thermal pads to the VRMs to fix an overheating / throttling issue. Even the battery is fine still.
Hey there, fellow 2017er! Different worlds, I know, but I’m just finding out my specific model 2017 MacBook Pro–the 13" without a “touchbar”–was the last model with a replaceable SSD, so I’m about to upgrade it to 2TB. Eventually I’ll probably replace its battery, but, for now, I’m even pretty happy with the remaining battery capacity. I’m just hoping it keeps working long enough for the right-to-repair movement to force Apple back to replaceable wear-and-tear parts (particularly SSD and battery) before I have to decide whether to choose between a completely unserviceable replacement model or switching platforms again.
another example of why apple laptops are so expensive.
80% of the price is to cover the R&D for fucking over the consumer.
Seriously, tying the goddamn *hall effect sensor to the system so it cant be replaced? Thats some freaking cyberpunk level corpo shitbaggery.
Apple is making really good hardware but we should stop buying it because of what they are doing against repairabality or because of the fact that they trying to capture you in their ecosystem.
I have a MBP 2015 and I love all the integrations with other stuff like my iPhone and Apple Watch, but every time I see a convenience feature like “Scan from iPhone” I just stop for a second and think “Imagine that was an open source, documented API that any developer could both hook into and implement into something like Windows or Linux.”
Apple is so good at making everything just work when everything is Apple. Truly, I think if this problem was solved for PC users, it would take away from Apple’s market share
True, though Apple does contribute some things, like MagSafe for iPhones is becoming part of Qi 2. I think Apple get a bad rep just because they’re a large target sometimes, but I don’t recall other big platforms releasing a bunch of their work as FLOSS either.
I’m also on the fence about the repairability thing. It’s nice to be able to open up an old computer to add more RAM/Storage/etc., but I also get that making everything integrated and soldered improves durability and reliability. I do think they take that a little too far sometimes. While RAM/SSDs should typically last a long time, the battery life often becomes the limiting factor for usability so making that repair simpler would go a long way. Pricing can be hard to bite too, while I don’t mind the idea of soldered RAM, I don’t like that upgrades are pretty heavily marked up compared to most manufacturers.
Then again, I’m still in the ecosystem, so unless there’s some government oversight setting standards for Apple to follow they’ll continue doing what’s profitable and their sales keep steadily growing despite the occasional bad press.
It’s nice to be able to open up an old computer to add more RAM/Storage/etc., but also get that making everything integrated and soldered improves durability and reliability.
If you’re willing to believe that soldering in a hard drive has anything at all to do with reliability I don’t even know what to tell you. The fact they apple will, with a straight face, charge $300+ to upgrade from 256gb of ssd capacity to 512gb should also be a clue…you can get 1tb for that price. and that price gauging on selling the customer parts at over 100% markup is the sole reason they solder them in.
I’m going to put this out there as just an idea, don’t buy apple products.
They’re shit they’ve always been shit and they’ve never been financially worth buying.
I just got an M2 MBP. In my personal experience it is very much not “shit”.
Expensive and a PITA to fix? Quite possibly.
+1 apple products are very much not shit. Otherwise people wouldnt buy and use them as prolifically as they do.
I started using Macbooks because the user experience on windows laptops sucks in comparison.
Better: https://frame.work
If I bought a framework laptop I would not physically be able to stop fiddling with it. I think I may end up spending more money in the long run. It’s too configurable for its own good.
I wonder if they’ll ever consider adding an e ink screen option, with a separate normal screen. There have been a few concept laptops like that, but I don’t think the demand is enough to actually make that profitable, but if it was just a configuration option of an otherwise more normal laptop, then I could see it being viable.
Not yet!
I’ve got a framework 13. It’s not better than a Macbook except in terms of user-serviceability.
- It’s hot and loud (hopefully the AMD upgrade will fix this)
- Battery life is atrocious (hoping AMD and battery upgrade will fix this)
- Trackpad isn’t as good (piano hinge, and the coating has more friction.)
- fewer ports(!) (limited to 4 expansion cards)
- sleep is broken (modern standby, ugh. S3 exists on the 11th gen model but it’s no better than s2idle. I’ll have to see if the AMD one is any better)
- Keyboard has bigger keys than I’d like, and while the key feel is pretty nice, it’s also heaver than any macbook I’ve used. Also, the layout is standard laptop garbage. The only reason the layout works on a macbook is because of macos’s shortcuts. On a PC I want a full PC keyboard like we had on 2011 ThinkPads.
That said, I do really like the laptop. I just find myself reaching for my macbook especially due to the issue with battery life.
They are a lifestyle brand and play on that to keep people trapped. People who buy Apple like the aesthetic of appearing wealthy. It’s classism through consumerism, even if the consumers don’t realise it.
Apple’s terrible privacy policy (yes, despite the word privacy appearing in the ads), atrocious right to repair stance, and aggressive software lock-in tactics should put any person who cares about those things off.
There was a purpose to buying Apple when they were the only player in the specific niche. Audio engineering is a great example of this. In the 90’s, Apple were really the only valid choice in a highly specialist field. Microsoft caught up in the 2000s, with Linux not too far behind in the 2010’s.
So nowadays, the limitations are effectively self-imposed. You can spend whatever money you want on a setup that will do whatever you need and the OS is a personal preference.
I don’t like Apple very much but it would be stupid to not admit that their new M1 and M2 SOCs aren’t great. Their battery efficiency far surpasses any from Intel or AMD and the performance is great.
I think MacOS looks stupid though, I mean, it looks like fucking Gnome.
I assume most people that buy Macs and iphones do it for their software and hardware, not because they want to appear wealthy. Like you said OS is a personal preference and some prefer MacOS and iOS.
…lock-in tactics should put any person who cares about those things off.
Unfortunately most people don’t care.
…lock-in tactics should put any person who cares about those things off.Unfortunately most people don’t care.
And once you are locked-in, the barrier to get yourself out of it is often so high that it dissuades most people from even trying to get out. I moved from macOS to Linux last year, and even though I was only using a small portion of the Apple ecosystem (iCloud was the only thing I believe), it still took a lot of time as they are designed to make it difficult/time consuming to migrate. Not to mention the macOS/iOS only applications you might’ve ended up using, as cross-platform functionality was not top-of-mind when choosing. In my case, the notes app Bear was such an example.
I assume most people that buy Macs and iphones do it for their software and hardware, not because they want to appear wealthy.
The “people want to appear wealthy” thing makes no sense in 2023 when flagship android phones are the same price or more expensive. People, as much as the anti-apple people don’t want to admit it, buy iPhones because they’re damn good phones with the best app support, accessory support, best customer support, the best performance, etc.
People buy Macs because they last forever and, especially now with the M chips, they are best in market performance and battery wise.
The EU needs to fuck their shit up.
Mandate that laptops must have user replaceable storage and RAM (and tablets to have user replaceable storage). My old Dell laptop has windows in the bottom to get to both of those.
The loss of 3.5mm headphone jacks is nothing compared to the loss of that. They’re common failure points and easy upgrade paths.
Nobody is stopping you from buying a laptop with user replaceable storage and RAM. Why do you need the EU to get involved? That’s ridiculous.
Upgradable RAM isn’t as fast as non-upgradable RAM and that this is especially true for the way Apple Silicon is designed. So no we shouldn’t be mandating something that reduces computer performance for the sake of an upgrade most people would never care to perform.
We should however force them to produce laptops with a certain minimum RAM and to reduce their ridiculous upgrade pricing.
Edit: also I don’t own a single Apple product. I aren’t a fan boy at all and I know they do a whole bunch of anti-consumer bs. I also know that modular RAM for Apple Silicon would be a terrible idea for that specific design. Modular SSDs on the other hand would be very doable.
A quick look at the claims suggest 100GB/s is the RAM speed for the M2 Macbooks.
A single DDR5 RAM stick is about 50GB/s. So that’s two of those in a dual channel config (effectively quad channel since each DDR5 stick is now a dual channel on it’s own).
There’s a good argument for introducing a new smaller DDR5 module so size isn’t an issue, but I’m not sold on speed being the main problem. RAM is fast even when it’s slow, and having more of it is almost always better than having it faster. No amount of RAM speed will ever compensate for swapping to storage when you run out.
At the very least mandate that the manufacturer replace the RAM at a reasonable cost at a later date, if you need more for future apps or if it goes wrong. We go on and on about fighting eWaste, yet entire laptops go in the bin when they don’t have enough RAM.
I doubt the difference in performance is that significant. If it was 50% faster then sure. But odds are it’s something like 3% speed difference. Same for the storage, I doubt that apple’s proprietary interface is that much faster than a regular high quality nvme, definitely not enough to justify the multiple that they’re charging for it compared to an off-the-shelf nvme.
Upgradable RAM isn’t as fast as non-upgradable RAM
Really? Why though? Is soldered-in RAM attached differently to the CPU?
iPhones tend to be more affordable in the US than in other places in the world. An iPhone SE is only $400, and used iPhones aren’t that expensive.
You, correct, if you need to develop for iOS or something Apple related you’ll need the appropriate hardware and software.
Which brings us back to my original point don’t buy Apple products.
Except they’re not. They’re excellent products and since Apple silicon are actually half decent value in some cases.
Except that they are. There is absolutely no value to anything they make. It’s all over priced proprietary crap.
Apple products right now are almost entirely home use there’s almost no commercial industry anymore.
Developers graphic design artists music producers most technology firms most offices like doctors and lawyers whatever don’t use Apple products. They’re almost exclusively windows.
Literally the only thing keeping them in business right now is the iPhone. They don’t sell enough of any other product.
What world are you living on? Most of silicon valley use Mac. Most the professions you listed DO use Mac. Since Apple silicon, performance for price ratio beats most Windows options for most people.
All of their products are anti consumer and they have been for years. I don’t understand why people still buy their products
Because I love the platform. I’ve been a Mac user for decades. People harp on marketing making us foam at the mouth for these products, but I genuinely love them. I also hate some decisions, but the time to switch platforms is not today or in the foreseeable future.
Yes, Linux would let me do most of what I want to do. But I appreciate the design of indie Mac apps. They’re far beyond the polish of apps on Linux and Windows.
Sad to say it but yeah. I’ve never really used MacBooks, but I had an ipad pro 10.5 for years, and it finally died on me a few months ago. I recently replaced it with a 2 in 1 thinkpad, but the level of usability is just not the same. Tried windows (kinda half thought out) and currently going through Linux distros (mostly buggy when in purely touchscreen only mode) but it is a far cry ipad os, even if I have issues with it.
Yeah, I’m really trying to find a tablet that is about 8 inches and has extremely smooth usage of web browsing and YouTube, that isn’t an iPad mini (or Samsung, just don’t like their UI), and it seems like nothing comes close anywhere in the industry, maybe with the possible exception of the Google Pixel Tablet. It feels like the entire industry gave up trying to innovate tablets because iPads were that good.
Not being forced to use Windows or having to hope that Ubuntu works, battery life, raw SoC performance, good keyboards (after they fixed the duds from 2016-2020), best trackpads in town, good quality apps, native Unix shell?
I was really looking into buying the Framework laptop but apart from that, everything seemed to be more or less crap (for my use cases) if you don’t want to deal with Thinkpads.
They are just used to them. OS X has one specific way of working that, once you learn it, is quite good. It sucks completely if you try to use it in different way so if you don’t like magic mouse (which sucks) and don’t like using their laptop keyboard (which sucks) and touchpad you will not enjoy it. But if Mac is all you know, you’re used to their hardware and know how it works you will love it because any other OS will be different and feel way less ergonomic. In my opinion if you’re skilled Linux/Windows user will customized workflow OS X will feel limited and be painful to use. If it’s you first computer or you don’t have any established workflow you will like it a lot.
It sucks completely if you try to use it in different way so if you don’t like magic mouse (which sucks) and don’t like using their laptop keyboard (which sucks) and touchpad you will not enjoy it.
This isn’t true for me. I use the same (cheap Logitech) mouse with Win11, Linux, and my MBPs. What’s meant to be the issue? It’s just like every other setup I’ve used in the last 30 years.
In my experience the only quick way to switch between windows of the same app, different apps, maximized apps and virtual desktops is using magic mouse/touchpad gestures. Without them it’s simply painful. Maybe you found some setup that works for you but I wasn’t able to reproduce the way I like to use WM in OS X. For example I use keyboard shortcuts to move windows between monitors and according to this https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/367858/does-macos-have-a-keyboard-shortcut-for-moving-an-individual-window-to-another-m in OS X it was only made possible in 2020 (I stopped using OS X before that) or you had to use 3rd party app. Same with sending windows to different desktops: https://superuser.com/questions/184763/is-there-a-way-to-move-the-current-window-to-another-desktop-without-using-a-mou
I can’t stand their keyboards. The keys have virtually no travel on them, they’re all low profile, and for some insane reason that I can’t work out, because isn’t their core market supposed to be audio engineers and graphic artists, the keyboards have no buttons for bindable macros.
Meanwhile I can get an excellent keyboard with decent travel and macro buttons for very little money. I get why the keyboards have to be low profile on laptops but why do they also have low profile keyboards for desktops? They are objectively the worst possible keyboard for a desktop. But they look sleek and modern so I guess that’s all that’s important. And because they are anti everything they are anti-choice, so I don’t get an alternate option, and have to buy an independent keyboard.
I don’t any more because of this kind of thing but I can understand. A few points at the top of my head
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Great desktop OS (note how Windows and Linux still to this day have inconsistencies on high DPI displays, to name just one example!
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Integration between them is good
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Security and privacy practices are great
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The phones are very consistent with camera quality and battery life
Windows has pretty great high dpi, Apple privacy is pretty awful and they hide everything they are doing, security is definitely getting worse on MacOS while the opposite is the case on Windows. And Apple still doesn’t super touchscreen which is an immediate deal breaker
There’s a lot of [citation needed] here, as for touchscreen I can see Apple’s point also, I’ve never had any desire at all to sit there with my arm outstretched poking a PC display (and covering it in fingerprints too). I’ve played with touchscreen laptops and it feels just as arm-tiring and unnatural as they said.